Appeals

[Done wit this]

I did an Iris Inquire Friday ,

Question was.. where my claims were at in the process.

The answer Was - Your claims went to appeals in August.

What kind of wait can I expect....With 1 IMO and 1 complete

medical Examination by a specailist... very complete ..

I went through hours in the MRI tube for this with needles in the joints of my shoulders for this.............

I guess the needles are common in my life ...

I just got another cortizone shot in my left shoulder on thursday...Sucks to be me get the right done the 11th of Nov ...... Hurts like hell for 3 days after the shots...... all for releif for around 4-6 months

Macool

[Berta]

Rick- my present claim 'went to Appeals' years ago-

this is not a very concise Iris response-

I suggest- with the latest news revealed about the way VA is handling our evidence-that you file the inquiry as an Iris complaint and ask them to be more specific.

I filed 2 Iris regular inquiries in past 4-5 weeks and also followed that up with 2 priority letters to VARO and only by filing again the same inquiry as a complaint -I received an answer that made sense but also proved that the inquiries and my 2 letters were not in the C file.

And they were critical to my claim- not evidence but some other matter-

NYS pays a lot of money for reps up there in Buffalo too- who should give you a better answer than a ballpark 'in appeals' reply-

heck we are all in appeals after we file a NOD.

[Berta]

PS-my 3 IMOs (the first 2 of which my POA said the VA had "rejected" and I proved to the General COunsel that never occurred-that complaint is still in process but got bigger per the GC a few weeks ago)-

were finally acknowledged by the BVA -it states right in the remand that the VA had never considered them-and my claim is now at the AMC and they cannot be ignored again.

Veterans are all concerned due to the latest OIG investigation and are trying to find out via their POAs if the VA has maintained their evidence or it has disappeared.

MY IM0s which BVA found in my C file were gone from it by 2006 (per the VA itself)and re sent many times and never acknowledged.

Unfortunately- when I told my story regarding the Buffalo VARO ( 22 years of lost, destroyed or missing evidence )to the SubCommittee Investigations/Oversight VA and to the VA Inspector General recently-

I certainly had to refer to my POA complaint with the OGC so our POA

might have to answer to more entities than the OGC.

I only hope you are getting the proper representation they didnt give to me.

[Done wit this]

I am nervous about this whole thing shredding-

how long it will take,everything.

I don't understand why it takes them years.. it

just does not make much since to me.

They just said in the Inquire that it went in

August I have been hounding them around once

every two weeks.

You would think they would have told me that in August..

Thanks for the reply Berta, hope all is well on your Hill.

Macool

[Ricky]

Most RO's appeals are taking from 6-18 months with the lower end 6-9 months applying to OIF/OEF vets. Just my opinion based upon morning reports and speaking with vets in my RO's area of operation.

[knifestuff]

If you look at the latest posted BVA annual report (for 2007) it doesn't offer much that's positive if you can't get resolution at the RO level--appeals to BVA taking an average of 531 days to get to BVA and another 273 from receipt of appeal by BVA for them to act on it. If you look at the overall caseload, it also indicates that BVA's backlog of cases is actually growing--not a good sign.

[Pete53]

Plus those stats are bogus cause the VA makes chit up.